Album Review: Robby Hecht – ‘Robby Hecht’

For his first collection since 2011’s Last of the Long Days, singer/songwriter Robby Hecht turned to producer Lex Price to help him achieve the lush sound he desired. The resulting eponymous album is a quiet collection of songs that pack a significant punch.

Hecht, who hails from Knoxville, TN, knew music was his calling around age 18 and he spent the next decade of his life turning it into his career through travels in Europe and a stint in San Francisco before making his way back to Music City.

After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Hecht was truly able to find himself and gain the confidence he needed to begin a solo career in earnest, with his new album marking the latest step in his journey.

Robby Hecht isn’t an album to be taken lightly, treated as background music while you enjoy a shindig or drive in your car. The quiet simplicity draws you in, commanding your attention in the way only the most finely crafted albums can.

Excellent lead single “New York City” is one of those songs, tracing the psychedelic hold the Big Apple has on those who’ve walked it’s streets and ridden it’s subways. Through various pleas, Hecht begs the city to give him the hope he can only find within himself. Similarly themed “I Don’t Believe It” finds a man going through a series of repeating lines in an effort to keep from facing the bitter truth and continue a life in denial.

Nashville writer Amy Speace co-wrote “The Sea & The Shore” with Hecht and the results are a quietly haunting tune about impossible love. The sparse production – just soft acoustic guitar with ribbons of light piano – works wonderfully to compliment Hecht’s delicate yet commanding vocal. “Cars and Bars” traverses nearly identical ground sonically, while also featuring a nicely engaging story about an encounter with a girl that wasn’t destined to be anything more than a one-time meeting. Hecht’s tender vocal conveys a hint of sadness among his recollection of that day.

“Feeling It Now” is slightly faster in tempo with jazzy elements incorporated into the production track. It’s an excellent number about contentment that perfectly conveys one of the hardest emotions to convey properly in a song. “The Light Is Gone” falls on the opposite end of the spectrum and concerns the end of a relationship as indicated through his lovers’ eyes, which painfully illustrate the lack of love she currently feels for him.

One of the album’s standout tracks is “Papa’s Down The Road Dead,” a rockilin’ reflection on the passage of time – someone close to you may’ve died, but life goes on without exception. My other favorite track on Robbie Hecht is “Soon I Was Sleeping,” the only number on the record to contain steel guitar in the backing track. It’s a pure country number about a woman who’s moved on from her ex, with the gorgeously painful flourishes of steel wonderfully extenuating Hecht’s ache.

I freely admit that when I first heard Robbie Hecht I was overcome by the lushness of it, leaving the arrangements feeling somewhat too sleepy for my tastes. But the quietness actually works in his favor, allowing his delicate voice to shine in a way that big production values would’ve squashed. Hecht is an incredibly emotional singer, albeit in a quiet way, and this album is the perfect showcase for his abilities. He may be outside what is traditionally considered country music (and not in a 2014 Nashville sense), but his album works nonetheless. He isn’t the noisiest guy around, but as a singer/songwriter he shouldn’t be ignored.

Grade: B+